Doctors tell how to protect yourself from a toxic planet

Suzanne Somers doesn’t expect support from doctors for her book on the relationship of toxins and human illness because “They weren’t taught this in medical school.”

But two MDs that support many of Somers’ views are Dr. Hessam Mahdavi, an internist with the Eisenhower Medical Associates physicians group, and Dr. Michael Galitzer, a former emergency ward physician who is now Somers’ integrative doctor. He’s also the author of “Outstanding Health: 6 Essential Keys To Maximize Your Energy and Well Being.”

Here’s what they say about issues addressed in Somers’ book, “Tox-Sick: From Toxic To Not Sick”:

The impact of toxicity:

Dr. Hessam Mahdavi

Mahdavi: Recently, I’ve noticed more patients are interested in this topic. My philosophy is, it comes in two parts: One is personal stresses that cause us to get sick and the second big part is environmental toxicity, whether it’s from the air we breathe, our water supply, the food – whether it’s genetically modified or sprayed with different chemicals — skin products, air fresheners. Some people do not have a way to get rid of these chemicals, so it becomes a toxic burden. As you have a more toxic burden, it starts to damage the healthy cells and that’s when you see diseases occur. Many of us like to blame everything on genetics. The way I like to describe genetics is, you have a loaded gun and adding environment and stress exposure is to pull the trigger. You can have bad genes, but, if you have good stress management and you lead a clean life, the bullet may never go off.

Galitzer: What I’ve found in doing this for 28 years is that different people have different sensitivities to toxin. Some people may be sensitive to heavy metal where other people may be sensitive to pesticides. We all have different abilities to break down toxins. For example, somebody can drink a cup of coffee in the morning and not be able to sleep at night where other people can drink coffee after dinner and sleep perfectly at night. I think everybody realizes there’s too much environmental toxicity on our planet. A new-born baby has 200 chemicals in their blood. Where did that come from? We all know toxins are harmful.

The condition of the environment:

Mahdavi: It’s much worse than 20 or 30 years ago because there are more chemicals introduced in our environment, more pesticides are getting approved every day. Our food supply has dramatically changed over the past 40 or 50 years. They’re talking about genetically modified apples. As a physician, from 20 years ago when I started, you’re seeing different diseases. You’re seeing kids with diabetes that you usually see on average when they’re 50 or 60. There’s an auto-immune epidemic. You’re much worse off than 20 years ago and I think 20 years from now (it could be worse). Already our soil has changed and our water supply has changed. We’re going to see much more chronic disease.

Dr. Michael Galitzer

Galitzer: We’re obviously not smoking cigarettes as much as we were in the ’50s and ’60s, but there is increasing amounts of toxicity. There are estimates that there are 100,000 chemicals that we’re exposed to that have never really been tested by the EPA. They can’t test everything and we’ve added things like genetically modified foods, which requires pesticides like Roundup to be added to the mix. We have this notion that we should all eat organic. Well, organic means it’s pesticide free. It doesn’t mean it’s heavy metal free. There are numerous classes of toxins: heavy metal, pesticides, DPA (used to prevent apples from turning brown), pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, salmonella. It’s really impossible to determine the synergistic effect of toxins. One toxin on top of another will create greater amounts of toxicity.

Ridding the body of toxins

Mahdavi: In medicine, one of the hottest topics is microbiome – the good bacteria in your gut. A lot of these chemicals that we eat will alter the bacteria in your gut and that alteration is causing chronic problems in our health. They’re doing a lot of research (on its relationship to) chronic disease, obesity, depression. You’re going to be hearing a lot about that – about changes in our diets, GMOs, chemical exposure, changing bacteria from healthful to unhealthful bacteria.

Galitzer: There are a lot of simple things we can all do to help our bodies get rid of toxins. Number one is to get your liver more efficient in excreting toxins. That’s the most important organ in terms of getting toxins out. There are simple things. You can do lemon in your water, you can do wheatgrass juice, you can juice green vegetables, castor oil packs. There are a lot of things I talk about in my book and Suzanne in her book that are very easy things to do.

Mahdavi: The first thing you want to do is stop the poisoning. Once you start decreasing the exposure, your body has an easier time getting rid of stuff naturally. Detoxification products or programs are great, but, the thing is, we’re getting toxic all the time. So, once you do a detox for four weeks, you’re going to feel better, but, when you stop, the toxic exposure will continue. It should be an introduction to detox, not a one-time deal because we’re always chronically exposed with all these chemicals.

Galitzer: The Merck Manual, which is one of the guiding sources of information for allopathic MDs, supported coffee enemas. It’s been known for years that coffee enemas work, so I completely support Suzanne in recommending coffee enemas. You certainly want to use organic coffee. The directions are pretty clear how to do that. You can get an enema bag at just about any health food store.

Bottled water quality

Mahdavi: I’m aware there’s BPA (a hardening chemical) in the plastic (bottles). By the time the water is filled up in the plastic and it gets transported by trucks, whether it’s cold or hot, the chemicals will leach from that plastic and, by the time you drink it, you get a lot of exposure. I have a nice water filter at home. I put it in a glass and I bring it to work and I try to drink from that. Do I have bottled water once in a while? When I have no option, yes. But I try to decrease my exposure.

Galitzer: Everybody now is on this kick to not drink the tap water and drink filtered water, but I find it just as important to put a filter on your shower and a filter on your bath because, if you’re not having filtered water and you’re taking a hot shower, the pores open and the impurities in the water get right into your body. So, I would urge people to use shower filters.

Genetically modified foods (GMOs)

Mahdavi: A couple months ago the World Health Association said Roundup may cause cancer. We have a lot of evidence now.

Galitzer: Genetically modified foods have to be labeled in Europe. More action is being taken in Europe than it is here in the United States, which is unfortunate. You’ve got the genetically modified fruit, but you’ve also got the fact that it’s sprayed with Roundup, which is a very dangerous pesticide that has been addressed in several of Suzanne’s books. It’s a combination of genetically modified food and Roundup that is detrimental for people.